ISO Puts OOXML On Hold: Standards Posted by: comforteagle From the Squeeky Wheels! dept.: After member states filed four complaints against the standardisation of Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) document format, the International Standards Organisation (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in Geneva have responded by postponing publication of the revised specification. As the ISO announced, the planned ISO/IEC DIS 29500 cannot be published until these complaints have been heard. Procedure requires that they be dealt with by the end of June, when the ISO and IEC have to hand over their comments on the complaints to two management committees for a final decision. Brazil, India, South Africa, and Venezuela have officially filed complaints against the controversial certification of OOXML in expedited proceedings in Geneva. These emerging nations are concerned that no consensus was reached about which changes need to be made to the specification, which is more than 6000 pages long, during consultation on the numerous comments submitted at the end of February, after the first attempt to adopt OOXML as a standard failed in 2007. Specifically, they complained that concrete technical objections were not individually discussed . Published Jun 10, 2008 - 06:43 PM Read more... Comment

South Africa Appeals OOXML: Standards Posted by: comforteagle From the Fighting dept.: The South African national standards body, SABS, has appealed against the result of the OOXML DIS 29500 ballot in ISO. In a letter sent to the General Secretary of the IEC (co-sponsor with ISO of JTC1), the SABS expresses its “deep concern over the increasing tendency of international organizations to use the JTC 1 process to circumvent the consensus-building process that is the cornerstone to the success and international acceptance of ISO and IEC standards.� Having resigned as Chairman of the Norwegian committee responsible for considering OOXML for exactly this reason, I congratulate South Africa on its willingness to stand up for the principles on which standardization work should be based. Published May 23, 2008 - 12:58 PM Read more... Comment

New York and Minnesota Publish Open Document Studies: Standards Posted by: comforteagle From the Wingdings dept.: ...New York and Minnesota have reached the end of their lengthy deliberations on open document formats. Both reports agree that an open format would be beneficial, but neither were willing to endorse a particular choice. New York's executive summary notes, "The State Legislature should not mandate in statute the use of any specific document creation and preservation technologies, as technologies can easily become outdated." Minnesota's report claims, "The marketplace is still in flux, and it is not certain that a single standard will emerge." Published May 23, 2008 - 10:16 AM Read more... Comment

Unix Group Takes UK Standards Body To Court Over OOXML: Standards Posted by: comforteagle From the Like Fighting City Hall dept.: "Halfway through the two-month window of opportunity during which OOXML's ISO standardization can be derailed by a formal objection from a national standards body, the UK Unix Users Group is trying to force the British Standards Institution to do just that. According to the Unix Users Group, the BSI used a flawed decision-making process when they chose to approve OOXML in the ISO vote. Published May 02, 2008 - 09:03 AM Read more... Comment

Nokia Calls for Openness: Standards Posted by: comforteagle From the Taking a Stand(ards) dept.: ...Speaking as the lunch keynote at The Mobile Future, a day-long conference sponsored by Carnegie Mellon and the University of California at Berkeley , Iannucci laid out his thoughts on how his industry has to change in order to spur the next generation of mobile demand. Openness, of course, refers to having standard platforms that applications developers can work on; the Android platform from Google would be one example. Published Apr 23, 2008 - 12:58 PM Read more... Comment

OOXML approved as an ISO standard: Standards Posted by: comforteagle From the Approved, but blehck! dept.: ISO/IEC DIS 29500, Information technology – Office Open XML file formats, has received the necessary number of votes for approval as an ISO/IEC International Standard. Approval required at least 2/3 (i.e. 66.66 %) of the votes cast by national bodies participating in the joint technical committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, to be positive; and no more than 1/4 (i.e. 25 %) of the total number of ISO/IEC national body votes cast to be negative. These criteria have now been met with 75 % of the JTC 1 participating member votes cast positive and 14 % of the total of national member body votes cast negative. Published Apr 02, 2008 - 12:15 PM Read more... Comment

War of formats: India shows thumbs-down to Microsoft: Standards Posted by: comforteagle From the Defending the Second Front dept.: India on Thursday gave Microsoft a thumbs-down in the war of standards for office documents. In a tense meeting at Delhi’s Manak Bhawan, the 21-member technical committee decided that India will vote a ‘no’ against Microsoft’s Open Office Extensible Mark Up Language (OOXML) standard at the International Standards Organisation (ISO) in Geneva on September 2. Published Aug 24, 2007 - 12:06 PM Read more... Comment

Massachusetts Falls to OOXML: Standards Posted by: comforteagle From the Booooo! dept.: n a not unanticipated move, Massachusetts announced today that Ecma 376, the name given to the Microsoft Office Open XML formats following their adoption by Ecma, would be acceptable for use by the Executive Agencies of the Commonwealth. The announcement was made even as it appears more questionable whether the National Body members of ISO/IEC JTC1 will conclude that the formats are in suitable form to be granted global standards status, and despite the fact that the ITD received comments from 460 individuals and organizations during the brief comment period announced on July 5. Most of those comments, "addressed revisions made to the Data Formats section [of the proposed changes to the Enterprise Technical Reference Model, or ETRM], specifically the inclusion of Ecma-376 Office Open XML as an acceptable document format for office applications along with the Open Document Format (ODF)." That number is several times the input received in connection with the original draft of the ETRM in August of 2005 that originally included ODF but not Microsoft's OOXML. Published Aug 03, 2007 - 03:14 PM Read more... Comment